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Thursday, September 20, 2012

Been ages since I last went to Singapore for a conjugal trip. My last visit was during my Europe trip more than a year ago. And with KH relocating back to KL soon, I really should make a visit before he fat lan char. Bought tickets from the JetStar website and that wasn't a very pleasant experience. I registered with my profile with my short name and so my itinerary came out with two words missing. Being an international flight, that would be a problem so I tried to change it. Seems that there was no avenue for me to do so over their website, so I called their customer service center. They needed me to send them a copy of my NRIC and my passport for the change to take place. After one day or so, they sent me an updated itinerary. Accompanying that intinerary was an e-mail detailing their infinite generosity at providing this service for free when they should charge. Whopppp-deeeeeeee-doooo. But with that problem solved, I needed to renew my passport pulak.

Took half a day off to go the new Home Ministry building near Solaris Dutamas. Arrived some time after 9:00am and the parking lot was nearly full already. Went straight to photo kiosk to get my passport photos. My hair was flat and my eyes slitty. Perfect. Then I went to the self-renewal kiosk. Took me some time to figure out that I was supposed to put my documents into the envelope that was hidden on top of the machine. :S. Made the payment, dropped the documents and out came a receipt that told me to collect my passport one hour later. Did my waiting at the cafeteria with a cup of teh tarik and my iPhone. Saw a gay guy there dressed up like someone out of a Tom of Finland comic strip. :S. I gave the immigration department an extra thirty minutes before I went back up. The fella at the counter asked me is the alotted time had passed. He checked and retrieved my passport! Voila!

I had settled everything before 11:00 am and I'll be damned if I go back to the office. Decided to have my lunch at Publika. Virgin trip there. Quite an airy interior and definitely easy to navigate since it's just a long-ish shopping arcade. Took pictures here and there since there were so mant artsy-fartsy art pieces and furniture. Asked Skyhawk for food recommendations and he pointed me to Journal by Plan B. Went there and found that it was the place with all the chairs stuck on the ceiling, as though gravity took some wrong medication. I did some simple reasearch on Foursquare and I was suddenly very fearful of the place. B A D S E R V I C E. S L O W. Oh well. I ventured down to the non-halal food court by the name of EAT. Decided on BM Yam Rice. The set consisted of yam rice with a side of stewed beancurd, egg, fatty pork trotters and sour soup. Not bad if I didn't have to watch my waistline and hope my arteries don't clog up. The stewed meat was good, but I found the rice too 'broken'. And some people may hate the fact that they garnish everything with Chinese parsley. Hahaha.

Lets fast-forward a bit. With my new itinerary, I proceeded to try JetStar's web check-in. Halfway through the process, I found that I could UPDATE the name of the passanger in one of the screens. If the people at JetStar were properly trained, I'm sure they could have told me this fact and saved each other the hassle of updating the itinerary!!! Stupid. Anyway, after keying in all my new passport details, the web check-in bombed (kononnya due to insufficient information-- and yet I filled in every field!). I tried a few more times over a couple of days. Finally gave up dropped a message on their FB page and gave them a call. The 'helpful' fella supposedly had helped me to check-in over the phone, but when I got to the airport, I was told otherwise. Bravo Jetstar!!!

I can certainly emphatise with you regarding the passenger name in Jetstar. Qantas, its parent company, has similar issue. Their system just doesn't have room for our typical Chinese "middle name". Luckily, I had little trouble checking in even though my ticket is missing that name.

Another thing: their system cannot accept symbols such as # or / and so typing in adress is a challenge.

who i am ?

I've been told that I look like Suneo Honekawa (how I wish it was Takuya Kimura). I'm fickle (so typical of Librans and other member's of the Alternate society). I laugh and grin a lot (must be some Cheshire Cat genes in there some where too). I have a loving family. Plenty of friends (SK's the best!). And a single person who completes me-- my dear KH. Life has been all ups and downs. But I'm a Thurday's child, so I guess there 's still far to go.